What Future Updates will make you switch to the Mac Pro

[wonderspark]

The beauty of BD-R drives is that you can add them if you want. I've had one in mine for years, and I love it!

I'm *really* curious to see what happens with Thunderbolt and Mac Pros.

 

[Phrygian]

i think most of us here use mac pros already so its not really about switching to the mac pro, rather purchasing a new one or not switching from the mac pro.

But to answer your question, an updated price

 

[TwoBytes]

i think most of us here use mac pros already so its not really about switching to the mac pro, rather purchasing a new one or not switching from the mac pro.

But to answer your question, an updated price

Hopefully a lower price!

 

[Lesser Evets]

I have a feeling it is definitely going to be much smaller, but still use the Xeon architecture. They'll probably remove the optical drives and have built in mSATA for the OS and still have a few bays for additional storage...

If you get inside the machine and look at it, it looks unlike anything else made by Apple. The board and architecture looks like 1978 more than 2013. They can easily reduce and combine portions of the board, compressing it down, etc.

The case is also wonderfully airy for cooling, but sans the opticals and perhaps with a different way to handle RAM, it can be compressed down to maybe half of what it currently is.

I think the one thing they just never can get around are the cards and the power supply. It needs a hulking PSU, and the PCI cards are what they are. The drives are clunky, but in a few years they might be tossed for SSD and make the whole system smaller again.

Personally, a smaller Mac Pro would be awesome. However, I don't need to tote it around, so it isn't a selling point with me.

 

[pertusis1]

I could't have said it better myself.

Indeed, just get us the fastest available server grade cpu, good gpu options, usb 3, tb, and for crying out loud, DON'T change the look of the case. The current box may be old, but it's still a thing of beauty. Also, don't shrink current internal expandability.

 

[SDAVE]

If you get inside the machine and look at it, it looks unlike anything else made by Apple. The board and architecture looks like 1978 more than 2013. They can easily reduce and combine portions of the board, compressing it down, etc.

The case is also wonderfully airy for cooling, but sans the opticals and perhaps with a different way to handle RAM, it can be compressed down to maybe half of what it currently is.

I think the one thing they just never can get around are the cards and the power supply. It needs a hulking PSU, and the PCI cards are what they are. The drives are clunky, but in a few years they might be tossed for SSD and make the whole system smaller again.

Personally, a smaller Mac Pro would be awesome. However, I don't need to tote it around, so it isn't a selling point with me.

Definitely.

Making it smaller makes it much more easier for them to ship, produce, etc, so it's an upside for them.

However, these things run Xeon processor at full speeds, but Intel's newer architectures are very power/heat efficient, so even if they run at full speed, they probably don't need the biggest heatsinks and cases.

I really don't mind a big Mac Pro, but from looking at the history of how Apple manages their products (especially recently), I would assume that it will be smaller. Imagine if we can fit 5-6 2.5 drives for storage and mSATA for onboard SSD's.

We'll see, I'm actually excited, but won't upgrade that soon as I'm happy with my Mac Pro

 

[scottrichardson]

However, these things run Xeon processor at full speeds, but Intel's newer architectures are very power/heat efficient, so even if they run at full speed, they probably don't need the biggest heatsinks and cases.

One would assume that ONE of the reasons Apple has held off this long for a major overhaul, was to wait until Intel has XEONS that are more power efficient, enabling them to design a smaller enclosure

 

[goMac]

If you get inside the machine and look at it, it looks unlike anything else made by Apple. The board and architecture looks like 1978 more than 2013. They can easily reduce and combine portions of the board, compressing it down, etc.

I've been using Mac towers a long time. The Mac Pro is by leaps and bounds cleaner than any tower Mac before it.

Open up a Blue and White Power Mac G3 and tell me it at all looks like the insides of the Mac Pro.

I don't think Apple waiting has anything to do with Xeon updates or lower powered Xeons, it's all about the Thunderbolt.

 

[derbothaus]

Open up a Blue and White Power Mac G3 and tell me it at all looks like the insides of the Mac Pro.

mmmm. PATA ribbon's everywhere.

 

[anthonylambert]

Mac Pro to support Xeon Phi proccessor? 50+ cores?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xeon-phi-larrabee-stampede-hpc,3342.html

Now that would crunch graphics......

 

[deconstruct60]

Mac Pro to support Xeon Phi proccessor? 50+ cores?

Support for the power requirements of a Phi PCI-e card is far more likely. However, that would be useful for other cards with that kind of power level also.

The other missing piece would be low level drivers to present the virtual Ethernet interface to the Linux instance running on the Phi card. Whether that is on Intel's or Apple's ( or both) plate is up in the air and likely would be a resource allocation issue.

Now that would crunch graphics......

Actually not so much. It can tackle GPGPU like problems, but very specific 3D graphics where the end result is directly encoded video stream data, not so much.

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One would assume that ONE of the reasons Apple has held off this long for a major overhaul, was to wait until Intel has XEONS that are more power efficient, enabling them to design a smaller enclosure

Not really because the updated ones aren't radically different. Unless switch to a completely different, line up, Intel is using the process shrinks to continue the "core count" war. There is very little drop off in power TDP constraints with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge Xeon E5s. To get to a Xeon line up that would allow for large substantive changes Apple would have to switch to the Xeon E3 line up (or obscenely gut performance with the low envelope E5's which are meant for corner case rackmount servers).

The Xeon E3 line has existed for two years now. That is and has not been an impediment.

As long as Apple is included Xeon E5 and 3-4 PCI-e slots with 400-500W allocations of power to those slots the primary driver of the Mac Pro case size ( around 900W of power to deliver and dissipate at the same relatively low noise constraints. ) stays in place.

They could get ride of the largely gratuitous handles that are hostile to horizontal racking. But that isn't substantively smaller.

5.25" (ODDs ) and 3.5" (HDD) drive sleds are not the primary drivers of the current Mac Pro size.

 

[nilk]

Have you looked into a Thunderbolt display

I don't know which 30" Dell monitor he has, but I have a Dell U3011 at home and an Apple ThunderBolt display at work. The Dell U3011 is clearly the superior monitor to me. The TB display had potential to be great combined with a TB-capable laptop (I use it with a rMBP), but it lacks an audio out and is plagued with USB related problems, so it still doesn't deliver on the promise of having only one cable to plug in (I still plug in my headphones and a USB external drive directly into the laptop). The U3011 has more pixels, is non-glossy, and has more input options. I'm hoping some day that 3rd party Thunderbolt hubs make Thunderbolt a more useful technology.

As for the Mac Pro, I'm torn about whether or not I'm going to get another Mac Pro. I have a 2007 Mac Pro that is still holding it's own thanks to graphics card, RAM, and CPU upgrades as well as the hack to get Mountain Lion to work. I've been disappointed with Apple's lack of support for upgrades and dropping OS X support, though I've managed to workaround their lack of support with unsupported upgrades/hacks. If the new Mac Pro takes a step backwards and is even less upgradable, I would be hard-pressed to get one. What I want is more upgradability and a promise for more support in upgrades, but I don't see Apple doing that.

As for what I actually want. I expect ThunderBolt support of some kind. I want more drive bays, hopefully keeping some of these as 3.5" because I don't see 3TB and larger drives appearing in a 2.5" size any time soon, and I prefer internal over external.

I don't care about a smaller form factor. The Mac Pro sits under my desk with plenty of room to spare, and I rarely move it. If it has to stay the same size (or be even larger) to contain the extra drive bays I want, and to have large enough heatsinks and fans (and with enough room for good airflow) to keep it quiet, that is fine with me. With the absence of the XServe, I can understand those using Mac Pros as servers wanting a small, more rack-friendly form factor though.

 

[SDAVE]

If I'm not mistaken, the Dell U3011 is a newer display than the one Apple uses. I don't know how you can live with the Dell design, though. It's quite ugly. The panel and options might be great, but I couldn't live with myself and use Dell (this is coming from a long time PC user). It's just plastic crap.

On a side note, the TB display is still good. Of course, much better than the old TN displays (Alum 30/23"). I have the Alum and it's still a fantastic display, however, S-IPS etc., of course, triumph it with brightness.

 

[deconstruct60]

With the absence of the XServe, I can understand those using Mac Pros as servers wanting a small, more rack-friendly form factor though.

It is not "small" that would make a difference. Just making the Mac Pro not rack hostile would suffice. Simply, the space the handles consume effectively makes it rack hostile. The "box" part isn't the primary problem; the handles are.

Apple could easily just do a minor shift the volume dimensions and still end up with the same internal working volume and likely the same effective weight. For instance, a couple of inches deeper in exchange for 2-2.5" inches shorter.

There will still be folks who groan about the Mac Pro being 5U and how 1U pizza boxes are great and how they only possibly have space for a 1U substitute for an old XServe. That is NOT the more significant problem. The problem is pragmatically having to mount the Mac Pro vertically which takes up an extremely gratuitous amount of space so zero good reason. HP's and Dell's workstations of similar class (HP 820 , Dell 7600 ) all fit a standard rack horizontally. This amounts to just clueless/dubious design on Apple's part. They can even keep the handles if they are smart about it.

There are going to be advocates for a XServe or xMac (mini tower) box with a Mac Pro label on it. That's just misdirection. If Apple's is falling for that, they will have blow it.

 

[phoenixsan]

I currently....

own a Mac Pro for personal use/work, but would like to see the following, if the Mac Pro update materializes:

-Native support of USB 3.0
-Native support of Thunderbolt
-More options for the GPUs
-Fusion drive support

 

[deconstruct60]

own a Mac Pro for personal use/work, but would like to see the following,
.....
-Fusion drive support

The current Mac Pro supports "Fusion drive" (i.e, composing a CoreStorage combined volume). That would be nothing new as it already exists.

 

[Wardenski]

I love the Mac Pros design but once my PhD is over it would be very difficult to justify the purchase of a Mac Pro over a DIY gaming PC or workstation.

Not fussed about the other stuff personally. I really can't see myself purchasing anything that needs thunderbolt and/or USB 3.

 

[nilk]

If I'm not mistaken, the Dell U3011 is a newer display than the one Apple uses. I don't know how you can live with the Dell design, though. It's quite ugly. The panel and options might be great, but I couldn't live with myself and use Dell (this is coming from a long time PC user). It's just plastic crap.

On a side note, the TB display is still good. Of course, much better than the old TN displays (Alum 30/23"). I have the Alum and it's still a fantastic display, however, S-IPS etc., of course, triumph it with brightness.

Apple's Thunderbolt Display is a fine monitor (I'm using one at this moment), I just don't think it's an upgrade from a Dell U3011 (as was suggested here), especially considering it has less pixels (which is the most important thing to me). The Apple display has it's advantages (built in camera, LED backlighting vs CCFL of the Dell, and it does have useful TB connectivity). If it actually lived up to it's promise of delivering great, bug-free Thunderbolt connectivity (some of the bugs may be the rMBP's fault, though), I might have a different opinion on this.

As for design, I look at the panel, not the bezel. And the Dell U3011 is not something obnoxious; it's just a plain black with squared edges, completely unobtrusive; the bezel is not something that catches my attention in any way. But then I don't care that much about the look of things, as long as they aren't obnoxious looking; I was completely happy with the design of IBM Thinkpads, for example.

If you already own a Dell U3011 and use Mac Pros (even a future one), there isn't that much of an argument for upgrading to a TB display. Sorry to digress from the main topic here...

 

[nilk]

It is not "small" that would make a difference. Just making the Mac Pro not rack hostile would suffice. Simply, the space the handles consume effectively makes it rack hostile. The "box" part isn't the primary problem; the handles are.

Good points. Agreed. Offering the option to swap out the handles for rack mounts would make a lot of sense.

 

[tejota1911]

an update at all would make me buy a new one.

+1

 

[spoonie1972]

i'd like it to support any and all intel code, 32 or 64 bit. Not being able to do that is a choice on Apple's part.

Chances are whatever OS it's released with will crush a lot of hopes and dreams.

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Good points. Agreed. Offering the option to swap out the handles for rack mounts would make a lot of sense.

i hate those handles. when the box is 45lbs, those things are sharp! also not fitting into a 19" rack is a problem. i've seen a lot of hack-saw jobs.

 

[KaraH]

An update at all would make me buy a new one.

Tweak a few specs up at least and KEEP THE FORM FACTOR. The main reasons I am leaving the iMac was a lack of upgradeability and the fact that once I bought a new one or something minor died I would have a huge paperweight.

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I have a feeling it is definitely going to be much smaller, but still use the Xeon architecture. They'll probably remove the optical drives and have built in mSATA for the OS and still have a few bays for additional storage.

I could deal with that. I already have an external so I can read/write blu-rays. Between a lack of an OD in the 2012 iMac and the fact blu-ray is probably not coming to any apple product soon I figured I would need it no matter what machine I went with.

 

[KaraH]

-Fusion drive support

That is something I certainly do NOT want. In fact, having to go to lengths to avoid it is one of the reasons I started thinking about the pro vs the iMac. In addition to the performance issues when you have a lot of data:

- Things I do not want on the SSD, like caches and logs, will get written there since I access them a lot. I want control of what goes where, just because I listen to a given mp3 often does not mean it would have improved performance on the SSD.

- All of the data on the fusion drive is gone if your HDD gets corrupted. With it only holding the data you want there you can still boot off your SDD and restore a backup.

 

[nilk]

- All of the data on the fusion drive is gone if your HDD gets corrupted. With it only holding the data you want there you can still boot off your SDD and restore a backup.

Or more precisely if either one of the drives (SSD or HDD) has a failure then your system is not going to work, whereas in a normal SSD+HDD setup at least your system still runs if only your data drive failed. When you use Fusion Drive, I wonder where your recovery partition ends up. Though, even if you lose your recovery partition, you still install OS X off the network or from USB flash drive with a copy of OS X (assuming you have one).

I'm somewhat interested in Fusion Drive and would at least want it as an option. I currently have a 1TB system drive, and with the current cost and sizes of SSDs, my budget would force me to get an SSD much smaller, which would require manually splitting that system drive into two drives, which is a good amount of work in my case. If I could avoid that by using Fusion Drive, while I wait for a 1TB SSD to become affordable, I may just do that.

I don't think the risk of using Fusion Drive is more than that of using RAID 0. If you have a good backup/recovery plan in place, I don't think it's that big a deal.

 

[KaraH]

Or more precisely if either one of the drives (SSD or HDD) has a failure then your system is not going to work, whereas in a normal SSD+HDD setup at least your system still runs if only your data drive failed. When you use Fusion Drive, I wonder where your recovery partition ends up. Though, even if you lose your recovery partition, you still install OS X off the network or from USB flash drive with a copy of OS X (assuming you have one).

Or you can install OSX from a CD (what I did to test lion as a virtual machine). Failure is one reason, performance is another, but a big thing is I want control of what goes where - something fusion may see me accessing all the time (and thus put on the SDD) would be a prime HDD file and I want ALL of my system files and apps on the SDD. My plan is to get an SDD much bigger than what I need right now ... not because I am brimming with cash but because I am going to treat myself with this system and I always spec computers as to what I will want several years from now rather than what I need today.

I'm somewhat interested in Fusion Drive and would at least want it as an option. I currently have a 1TB system drive, and with the current cost and sizes of SSDs, my budget would force me to get an SSD much smaller, which would require manually splitting that system drive into two drives, which is a good amount of work in my case. If I could avoid that by using Fusion Drive, while I wait for a 1TB SSD to become affordable, I may just do that.

An option, yes, but OSX seems determined to force it on you if it sees both an SSD and a HDD. We all know fusion is just a temporary patch until SSDs get better and cheaper.

II don't think the risk of using Fusion Drive is more than that of using RAID 0. If you have a good backup/recovery plan in place, I don't think it's that big a deal.

Maybe, but as a programmer I am a bit leery of another layer between me and my data. It just strikes me as yet another point of failure.

In addition to the normal timemachine I plan on semi-regular clones of my full system. Maybe not the best backup strategy but certainly better than I have used before. Even so, a backup is like insurance ... you hope you never need it (and if you do it is to recover a deleted file).